Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014

Sunday

Aug 17, 2014 at 12:01 AM

We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall. — lyric from 1981 hit song “Key Largo”She was sexy. She was sultry. She was Hollywood’s classic sangfroid beauty whose silken voice and alluring side glances...

We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall.

— lyric from 1981

hit song “Key Largo”

She was sexy. She was sultry. She was Hollywood’s classic sangfroid beauty whose silken voice and alluring side glances under soft-light cinematography beckoned not only her leading men but all of us as well. Lauren Bacall, who died of a stroke at her beloved Dakota Apartment residence in New York City on Tuesday, was 89 and the encyclopedic repository of a million movie memories.

For starters, she was the final tie to the iconic Humphrey Bogart, whom she met and dated while working on her first picture, “To Have and Have Not” (1944). She married the much older Bogart, and remained with him until his death in 1957. Ms. Bacall appeared in three more films alongside Bogart, the last being John Huston’s great “Key Largo” (1948). “My obit is going to be full of Bogart, I’m sure,” she told Vanity Fair in a 2011 article.

Her sumptuous poses on screen became known as “The Look,” but the always-unpretentious Ms. Bacall had the explanation for that: “I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of ‘The Look.’”

Born Betty Joan Perske, in New York City, Ms. Bacall took drama lessons while working as a theater usher and model. She made her stage debut in 1942, and was subsequently signed by director Howard Hawks to a seven-year contract. One of her notable performances during this period was opposite Kirk Douglas in “Young Man With a Horn” (1950), in which she played the two-faced femme fatale to icy perfection.

Choosy about her roles, Ms. Bacall appeared in only a handful of films in the 1960s and ’70s, but she did extensive stage work, including “Applause” (1970), for which she won the first of two Tony Awards for best leading actress in a musical (the other being 1981’s “Woman of the Year”). More than half a century into her film career, she was nominated for a best supporting actress academy award for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996). She received an honorary Oscar in 2009.

Ms. Bacall’s 72-film career also included work in Rhode Island, in “Mr. North” (1988), which was partially shot in Newport. She later co-starred in her friend Gregory Peck’s last film, “The Portrait” (1993). Ms. Bacall’s longevity as an actress carried her into the 21st century, and work for the iconoclastic Danish director Lars von Trier; she appeared in his films “Dogville” (2003) and “Manderlay” (2005). Her last role was a voice-over part in a recent episode in the animated TV series “Family Guy.”

“I have learned that I am a valuable person,” Ms. Bacall wrote in “By Myself,” her 1978 memoir. “I remain as vulnerable, romantic and idealistic as when I was 15.”